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About Ted Knutson: Ted Knutson is the former Managing Editor of StarCityGames.com and is widely respected as one of the most knowledgable members of the Magic community.
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This whole thing started innocently enough. Back in January, before Zvi Mowshowitz actually started writing for the site, I was pondering cool ideas for him to explore in terms of writing topics and it occurred to me that none of the big-name Pro writers have spent any time discussing Vintage in a loooooong time. Back in the day, before he was Zvi Mowshowitz: Pro Tour winner, Zvi was the goofy Type One kid at Neutral Ground. Add in the mad scientist deckbuilder reputation, and I couldn't think of anyone better to lead the way in exploring Magic's oldest format - the question became "How do you maximize it?"
I talked to Pete and Ferrett about the idea and they were a bit appalled at first. Then it dawned on me that not only could we have the pros write about Vintage, we could also have them play Vintage at one of the Power 9 tournaments. I changed my pitch to the Star City brain trust, and suddenly they were receptive to the concept. My next task was simply to figure out the coolest tournament hook possible, and the World Poker Tour idea of holding a "Shooting Stars" event seemed like a natural fit. Some begging, bludgeoning, and asking very nicely later and we had a set of "Stars" on board - now we just needed to find a venue to host the thing. My original hope was to hold it at Power 9 Richmond the weekend after the Invitational and hopefully get most of the Invitationalists to attend at well, but the folks at Wizards said the scheduling would make that impossible, so we pushed it back an event to Rochester and here we are.
Due to their extremely hectic schedules, I was unable to get more Pros to write about deck development ahead of the event, but I expect to see a series of reports and format analysis from our writers after the event. In the meantime, here's a list of the Stars in attendance:
Zvi Mowshowitz
Chad Ellis
Rich Hoaen
Steve Wolfman
Ken Krouner
Josh Rider
Craig Krempels
Kevin Cron
Ben Kowal
Ben Bleiweiss
Osyp Lebedowicz's pet hamster died and he was not able to attend today, but Pro Tour: Atlanta runner-up Adam Chambers made a surprise appearance filling Osyp's absent pro slot.
Talking to the field of players here today and the buzz that we've seen on our message boards, it looks like the idea was a hit, and should make for a very interesting day of coverage from JP, Carl, and whichever of our writers scrub out early. My money's on Ben Kowal for that task...
